


look at the stars (look how they shine for you)

by buttercupx



Category: Glee
Genre: ALL OF SAMMY'S RIGHTS, Except Sam, F/F, Fluff, Future Fic, but lbr none of them matter, i guess I mean, idk - Freeform, just dykes being dykes!, quinn fabray is a lesbian, tHANK U, theres other characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:08:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23279884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buttercupx/pseuds/buttercupx
Summary: Quinn Fabray falls in love a grand total of three times.
Relationships: Rachel Berry/Quinn Fabray
Comments: 6
Kudos: 70





	look at the stars (look how they shine for you)

**Author's Note:**

> no i have absolutely no fucking clue why im writing fic for a show that aired ten years ago idc idc we don't talk abt it!  
> also yes this is rusty and also will probably have typos idc idc the fact that i wrote this is a miracle in itself! (all this fic will tell u is how much i love unnecessary commas and italicization)

Quinn Fabray falls in love a grand total of three times.

The first time it happens is the summer she turns thirteen. It’s the first time she goes to cheer camp, and she’s brimming with breathless anticipation and jittery smiles as she steps off the bus, all messily applied cherry flavored lip gloss, candy floss sticky fingers and sugar sweet giggles. She’s so busy laughing at something the girl she sat next to on the bus says (who, by the way, is called Brittany S. Pierce, S for sausage), that before she knows it, she finds herself falling face-first into the road, her books splayed across in front of her and blood trickling down her nose in a crimson stream. There’s a few snickers and she feels the heat rush to her cheeks, and, even if only momentarily, she almost feels like Lucy again. _Oh_ , is she going to absolutely fucking kill-

‘Watch where you’re going,’ a girl interrupts her, scowling, ‘The rest of us actually have places to be.’

Quinn bites her tongue to resist pointing out that, actually, they’re all going to the exact same fucking place. She feels the red hot anger begin to cloud her vision, and she scrambles to her feet, hearing Brittany squeal something along the lines of oh-my-god-that’s-Santana-Lopez and the name registers somewhere in the back of her head, reminding her of something vaguely to do with the ninth grade Russian Literature class she’s going to be taking this year at her new high school, but god help her because all Quinn Fabray can think about is that she is going to teach that bitch a fucking lesson.

Quinn ends up teaching Santana Lopez how to kiss a girl, between campfire songs and summer water fights and pool parties and cheer practice and apple-cider-drunk spin the bottle. And _God_ , is Santana a fast learner.

Santana, as it turns out, has an uncanny ability to make Quinn feel like Lucy again. It’s almost like every time Santana shoots her a wicked smile, eyes sparkling and cheeks pink, Quinn turns to goo from the inside, all soft and ready to fall apart into her hands at any moment.

Quinn holds her hand on the bus back home and smiles at the way Santana’s eyebrows furrow in determination and her lips curve into a pout as bubblegum sticks to the tip of her nose as Brittany waves her hands around animatedly, swooning about her crush-of-the-week. For once, everything is _absolutely_ perfect.

The second time, Quinn is seventeen years old and very, very insistent that the summer before she turned fourteen was just a really long lucid dream, and Mackenzie, who insists she’s called "The Mack" because she likes to make out with truckers at rest stops, gives her a little shit-eating grin before she kisses her boyfriend, ( _her_ boyfriend), and winks at her before she walks away. And for some reason, Quinn really doesn’t care that her lips were on Tyler’s. (A forty-year-old biker doesn’t really live up to her obviously _impossibly_ high standards, anyways.) And yet, the urge to rip a heart out instills itself into the very core of her being and the memory of the little sway to The Mack’s (and, dear God, thinks Quinn, what an absolutely _ridiculous_ name) hips as she walks away, which, by-the-way-for-your-kind-information, Quinn knows, is deliberate, taunts her for days after.

Oh, how Quinn wants to slam Mackenzie against the bleachers and wipe that smug look off her face. How Quinn wants to tell Mackenzie the countless places she could shove her boyfriend stealing, spoilt brat attitu-

Mackenzie ends up shoving her tongue down Quinn’s mouth and her hand up her skirt in the girls’ showers, a wicked grin on her face as Quinn bites down on her shoulder, all pretty little gasps and whimpers. They spend most of their time making out; under the bleachers; in pillow forts and in the backseat of the Mack’s dad’s truck; nothing but hushed whispers and coy glances.

When Mackenzie tells her stories about her brothers and maps out constellations of freckles on her neck whenever her fingers trail down her collarbones, and the light in her eyes returns, Quinn can almost pretend everything is perfect again.

The third time Quinn Fabray falls in love, she’s twenty-four years old. Well, actually, the third time Quinn Fabray falls in love is scattered in rose-tinted snapshots between the first and second times, and it’s an awkward, sprawling affair that latches onto the rest of her life. But if she had to pick a timestamp for it, Quinn would go for twenty-four. She can practically hear Santana’s derisive snort at that, as if to say _yeah, right_ , but as it is, to her utter chagrin, Santana can _not_ , in fact, actually read minds, so it’s a null point, really.

After all, Quinn _is_ twenty-four when she works up the courage to finally take Shelby up on her offer to be a part of Beth’s life. They start with exchanging letters, and Quinn writes each one out like it’s a thank you note to her daughter’s existence. Then come the FaceTime calls, which settle into their lives every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon in a sweet spot between Beth’s karate class and Quinn’s last lecture of the day. It’s not always easy. Some days, seeing her eight year old daughter’s messy mop of brown hair on the screen or hearing the freeness of her laughter bouncing off the walls of her bedroom ends with Quinn bawling into the corner of her pillow. She wouldn’t give it up for the world, though. 

(Not again.)

Soon though, Quinn ends up in New York City for a girls’ weekend with Santana and Brittany and a date with one of their red-lipped, rosy cheeked starlette friends with a dazzling smile and a taste for blondes, and she knows she can’t push it off for much longer. 

Which is how Quinn finds herself in one of those pretty little suburban towns with rows on end of Levittown houses that look like poorly drawn caricatures of a little girl’s dollhouse, on Shelby’s door at four p.m. on a Friday afternoon, fist clenched -- _almost_ ready to knock -- but not quite. She’s been standing there for the past fifteen minutes at least; alternating between pacing in the garden and staring at the door like if she concentrates hard enough it’ll open on its own and she’s pretty sure the neighbors are staring.

So, before someone calls the cops on her, she takes a deep breath and rings the bell, prepped with a hundred and one excuses to placate Shelby Corcoran.

It’s just her fucking luck that when the door opens Quinn is greeted by someone who is decidedly _not_ Shelby.

Rachel Berry still looks the same as she did when she was seventeen and nothing but a small town girl with big dreams and wide eyes. It takes one look at her and suddenly Quinn can’t _breathe_ , and she’s bombarded with images of early morning customary corn syrup baptisms before first period and sly smiles and viperous whispers in locker rooms after gym class and deafening silences proceeding heartfelt monologues in glee practice, and Quinn’s lungs feel like they’re _burning_ and she grasps onto the door frame as her knees give way and she staggers and oh _god_ , it’s all too much and too little at the same time and she can’t _take_ it. Her mind immediately flashes back to visions of a wilting corsage of gardenias still settled between her first teddy bear and a box of polaroids in her childhood bedroom and untouched Metro Passes she still keeps in her wallet behind a picture of Beth at Disney Land and a shining silver tiara she knows rests on a pink dresser somewhere in Lima. 

Leave it to Rachel Berry to fuck up Quinn’s plans. Every single time.

Rachel’s mouth widens to form an O shape as the rest of her stays frozen in a comically cartoonish pose and it’s like the words come out of her on autopilot.

“Quinn?” She gapes, still frozen in the doorway, brow furrowed in confusion, “Quinn, what are you doing here? How did you even _get_ here? Don’t you live in New Haven? And who gave you the address? I told Shelby she needed to clear it from the internet--” she throws her hands up in the air “--people these days have no concept of boundaries or privacy whatsoever and then get accosted by psychopathic and absolutely deranged lunati- not that I’m saying you’re a _lunatic_. No, of course not, you seem like a perfectly nice girl Quinn, but you know, I read somewhere that most psychopaths are perfectly capable of going by unnoticed, not that I’m suggesting- Oh, for _God’s sake_ , Quinn Fabray, what are you doing here?”

Quinn blinks and moves back. Oh, yeah, Rachel probably wants an answer.

So, instead, she says stupidly: “You’re wearing jeans.”

Rachel flushes an ungodly shade of pink and scowls, “God help me, Lucy Quinn Fabray, if you don’t tell me what you’re doing over here, right now, I will call the police and tell them that I caught this armed twenty four year old woman trying to break int-”

“I’m not armed!” Quinn splutters, indignantly. 

“Yeah?” Rachel shifts against the doorframe, crossing her arms defensively, “Well, the police don’t know that.”

“Rachel!” Quinn exclaims.

Quinn turns pink this time. Out of only the corner of her eye, she can see the lady watering her garden drowning the patch of flowers next to Shelby’s house as she inconspicuously leans over, and a woman peeks through the blinds of her window to stare at them. People are watching them. 

Surprise, surprise.

Quinn feels lip curling up in annoyance and so she forces an awkward stilted smile onto her face and grits out, “So, can you invite me in?”

“No,” Rachel replies with the same cheery disposition, “I don’t think I will, actually!”

“Rachel.”

“Quinn! I’m glad to see after four years of knowing each other you know my first name! Though, I wouldn’t put it past you to remember me as Manhands!”

Quinn winces, as she bites her lip in acceptance. Yeah, she deserved that one.

“Shelby gave me the address,” she offers, instead, “Where is she, anyways?”

Rachel stares at her for a beat too long before reluctantly backing into the hallway and allowing Quinn into the house.

“You can hang your coat there,” she says coolly, pointing to a rack, turning to complete her sentence, “and I didn’t know you were in contact with Shelby.”

So _that’s_ what this was about.

“Well,” Quinn tries to shrug it off, awkwardly, “Now you know?”

Rachel still looks unimpressed so she offers an explanation but something about how wounded Rachel looks tugs at Quinn’s heartstrings in a way she knows goddamn well it’s not supposed to.

Rachel watches her with a guarded expression before calling out, “Beth, darling, there’s someone here to see you!”

Quinn’s chest tightens and something in her threatens to burst open as Beth comes running into the hallway and practically mauls her with a joyous leap and bout of laughter as soon as she sees her. She buries her face in the fragile nest of limbs her daughter builds in her arms, and tightens her hold around her. She doesn’t know how long she just holds Beth until she lifts her head up to see Rachel staring at them in an indiscernible mixture of awe and envy.

Rachel offers her tentative smile, and Quinn decides things can be okay again. Maybe not perfect, but she’ll work her way there.

Later that night, she meets the girl Santana has set her up with at a bar near their place. Her name is Samantha and her eyes are blue like waves crashing against a cliff and she has the taste to take Quinn to a Broadway show.

“What sort of a tour guide would I be if I didn’t show you the best part of this city?” She jokes, her eyes twinkling, and dark hair swaying in the wind and some part of Quinn’s heart aches because she knows exactly why Santana picked this friend. 

Quinn smiles anyways because conversation with Sam is easy, and she’s fun to talk to and as they settle into their seats (“Third row, dead center,” Sam tells her, winking, “The best view a girl could ask for, and _trust me_ , you’re gonna want a view.”) Quinn feels herself loosen up and laughs more than she has in months.

Turns out, Sam is wrong. This is the last thing Quinn wants a view of. 

Quinn doesn’t see her, as much as she hears her. She’d know that voice anywhere. Rachel Berry struts onto stage, fingers hooked under her suspenders, a playful smirk on her face and fire in her eyes and Quinn sinks in her seat.

Her life feels like a cruel, cruel joke and she can almost imagine a celestial court of angels somewhere in heaven enjoying the soap opera she seems to be spiraling into.

Sam smirks at her halfway through, when Rachel leans over to the other actor on stage and pops the first few buttons of her shirt with a lazy smile and wink and it’s almost as if Rachel is looking her directly in the eyes. 

She draws in a long breath through clenched teeth, the once cool puff of air scorching a path down her throat and diffusing from her lungs to what feels like every vein of her body until she’s ready to combust from the inside. Her nails dig crescents into her clammy palms and she exhales out the heat that threatens to suffocate her from the inside in one determined breath as she clenches her thighs together, ignoring the heat pooling at the bottom of her stomach.

Everything’s okay. Yup. Perfectly okay.

_Goddamnit._

Quinn doesn’t know if she wants to be sitting here next to Rachel watching her favorite revival, hearing her gush over every little thing or if she wants to be up there with Rachel, dancing to her heart’s desire of if she wants to be the only one watching Rachel rip her shirt off like that or- but _God_ , she _wants_. 

When the show’s over, Samantha shoots her yet another perfect smile and Quinn’s heart breaks because Samantha is exactly the kind of girl she would call back for a second date any other day.

Today’s just not one of those days. And Quinn knows that when at the end of it all, Rachel comes over to meet Quinn herself.

“This is Samantha,” she introduces, and the words seem to clog up her throat, “my date,”

“Oh,” says Rachel in surprise, but follows up with, “I didn’t know you were here with someone.”

She looks almost embarrassed as she says it and Quinn frowns in confusion. Why would she come see a play alone?

_Oh._

Because Rachel told her that she was starring in a play. But Rachel has to know Quinn can’t just get ticke-

“Just wishful thinking, I suppose,” Rachel breathes out, like she knows what Quinn is thinking and Quinn’s breath catches in her chest.

Sam stiffens by her side, catching her cue, “I think I see a friend of mine, I’ll be right back, and let you two catch up,”

Quinn wants to turn back and ask Sam to stop. God, she _does_. But then Rachel looks at her with those eyes and bites her lip. 

“I missed you,” she whispers and it’s almost surreptitious, the way she says it.

“I know,” she says back.

She doesn’t need perfect.

**Author's Note:**

> follow me @frcyamikaelson on twitter im cool i promise


End file.
